


separate ways (with fanfare)

by cherrytreebridge



Series: marching band au [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Marching Band, Character Study, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Non-Linear Narrative, gratuitous use of poetry and song lyrics, miya twins week day 2: separation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26860639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrytreebridge/pseuds/cherrytreebridge
Summary: The Miya twins were not ones to do things in the traditional sense, and perhaps to them, fanfare meant an entire story on its own.(Like the one that they had already lived, before they went their separate ways.)the miya twins, and how their lives are still connected, even if it doesn't seem like it.
Relationships: Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu
Series: marching band au [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1831198
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18
Collections: Miya Twins Week 2020





	separate ways (with fanfare)

**Author's Note:**

> (for brookie)  
> [the playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2uUR8Pjq85SvGGiRUhLYDC?si=qACEmhaMSTyaxcVfZFLDng) that goes with this  
> [the art](https://twitter.com/petalbridges/status/1311832800891289600?s=20) that goes with this  
> (this is a Three Piece Multimedia Experience tm, the playlist/art/fic all go together)
> 
> anyways. this is a self indulgent thing about the dynamics of the miya twins. the marching band au is really just a catalyst for that. enjoy
> 
> (ps - this fic is inspired by me and my sister! if u ship miyacest pls hit that back button thank u)

_How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard._

_-A.A. Milne, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh_

_Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future._

_-Mary Schmich, Wear Sunscreen: A Primer for Real Life_

  
  


* * *

Miya Osamu wakes before the sun.

He sets his alarm early, because he likes the extra time to get ready in the morning, even if he doesn’t need it - and climbs out of bed only a few minutes after it rings. His room is pitch black, dark blackout curtains blocking what little light the early sunrise brings. He has two fans - one a box fan, mostly for noise, on the far side of the room; the other a standing fan near his door that keeps the room cool - and doesn’t make a move to turn off either once his feet hit the carpeted floor. His bed is barely mused, just a comforter peeled back where he used to be laying, and the pillows elsewhere undisturbed. He allows himself to take his time in the routine of brushing his teeth, combing his hair, finally turning on the lights, choosing an outfit for the day, going downstairs to take his morning medicine with a full glass of water. 

Miya Atsumu sleeps through his third alarm and wakes to his brother towering over him. 

Sunlight has already begun to stream through the blinds, painting the room in a soft orange light and highlighting the edges of Osamu’s form. There are pillows in a haphazard pile at the foot of his bed, pushed slightly to the side so he doesn’t kick them off - though a few have met this fate anyway. His comforter is in a tangled mess, a mobius strip of a blanket, somehow tied in knots and still covering him from toes to chin. His room is messy, but not uncomfortable: if you asked him, he could tell you where anything is. Even so, it drives their mother up the fucking wall. 

“Get up,” says Osamu. “We gotta go.”

“What time is it?”

“6:45,” is the reply, to which Atsumu groans loudly and dramatically throws an arm over his eyes.

The next fifteen minutes are a hurried mess of morning basics, during which Atsumu accidentally brushes his teeth twice but forgets a pair of socks and has to make the trek back upstairs. Osamu is standing by the back door, packed and ready, and makes a face of disgust when Atsumu takes his meds with a handful of sink water. He is handed two disposable cups by his mother, and almost walks out the door without his keys. 

“Here,” Atsumu says, thrusting the two cups at Osamu. He takes them reluctantly. Both contain a packet of instant oatmeal, already starting to dry in the open air because Atsumu was making them run late. “You better eat yours or I’ll tell.” 

“I hate eatin’ in the morning,” grumbles Osamu. 

Atsumu lets out a huff, slinging his backpack and his trumpet case in the trunk before slamming it closed. “You’ll feel worse if ya don’t eat it, though.”

Osamu only makes a face, climbing into the passenger side. The inside of the car is stiflingly warm from sitting out on the driveway, the pleather seats sticking uncomfortably to Atsumu’s thighs as soon as he sits. Osamu cranks the air conditioner as soon as the key is turned, and they both suffer through a few minutes of warm air before Atsumu’s little red Jetta manages to wake up.

“Kaput, kaput, kaput,” Osamu tsks, smacking a hand down on the dash.

His twin glares at him. “Be fucking nice. She’s doing her best.”

“Aren’t we all.”

Atsumu doesn’t grace that with a reply, instead dropping his hands from ten-and-two at the wheel so the left is sitting solidly at twelve o’clock and the right is throwing his phone in Osamu’s lap.

“Here. 7-2-6-8. Put on my playlist.”

Osamu says nothing, the bluetooth adaptor chiming when it turns on and connects to Atsumu’s phone. 

“Change the song,” Atsumu says almost immediately. 

“Ya said turn on yer playlist, Imagine Dragons is on yer playlist.”

“It’s on there for ya, but I don’t wanna listen to it this morning. C’mon, put on Marina and the Diamonds.”

“No, and I wanna listen to it.”

“My car.”

“Ya put me in charge of music.”

Atsumu sighs, loudly, dramatically. Osamu rolls his eyes. 

He changes it to Billie Eilish, and they both are okay with this. 

* * *

Realistically, they both knew there would be a time when they did not live together, when they didn’t live in spaces that overlapped so much. They knew this, but they did not come to terms with it until they were packing their bags in their respective rooms for two different universities.

* * *

Miya Atsumu has never existed in a world without Osamu. 

Well, this is a lie. Atsumu came into life the same way he lived it - headfirst, screaming, and trying to do anything first before Osamu has the chance. For a few small moments, Atsumu was alone, the center of attention, just the way he liked it. But those few minutes did not matter in the grand scheme of things once Osamu appeared. Such a small time was insignificant compared to seeming lifetimes together packed the course of just one, of two halves navigating everything together, and not knowing how to do it without the other. 

Atsumu and Osamu exist together more than they do separately. Conversations featuring stories of their exploits rarely included one but not the other. They had few friends to whom they still had to say, “My brother, ‘Sumu,” or “My brother, Samu,” because these friends had learned about both of them through the other’s tales. In high school band, once they assimilate into the culture of section politics, it becomes stunningly clear just how important they are to each other’s identity. Freshman clarinets who Atsumu has never met know him well enough to carry a conversation. Trumpets wave at Osamu during passing period, and he double takes thinking they have mistaken him for his brother until they greet him by his name.

At practice, Atsumu and Osamu get under each other’s skin as much as possible. There is one set during which the nets stand still during a run, the trumpets marching behind them - and every time they reset it, Atsumu has convinced the trumpets to slap Osamu’s ass as they run past him. 

(Osamu will get him back later, at the football games - but that’s another story.)

* * *

_I’ve decided I won’t be doing band in university_ , Osamu had said. Atsumu had been furious. 

_I want to focus on school_ had only made him feel worse. 

Atsumu, despite his boisterous attitude, had always harbored the suspicion that Osamu was the better of the two of them. More studious, less flighty. Perhaps this was proving that suspicion right. 

Wasn’t it selfish to go to college and do band? To take time that could’ve been dedicated to something else more _productive_ and give it to something that would not matter in four years? 

He did not realize how much it hurt Osamu to take away the thing that had brought him so much joy, but Osamu was also the one who knew that at the end of the day, it was time to move on. 

(In many ways, Atsumu had always been the stubborn one.)

* * *

September comes quickly. It’s still hot - hotter than they feel is fair, and they fall into the routine of the school year, of classes and practice and games and competitions on the weekends. The Miya twins drive to school together every morning and drive home after practice every night. Mornings are loud, rushed, Osamu yelling at Atsumu to hurry the fuck up, Atsumu singing along obnoxiously to his music, half to spite his brother. Nights are quiet, walking to the car on sore feet and carrying instrument cases with calloused hands, both exhausted by the demands of the day. Atsumu turns on his playlist and Osamu doesn’t complain this time, nearly falling asleep on the passenger side. They are both silent, the hum of tires on an empty parking lot under the full moon, Atsumu glancing at his reflection in the rearview mirror while his hands sit at ten and two on the wheel. 

On Friday, they will wake up earlier than usual, and it will be a miracle that Atsumu manages to get them to school on time for the rally. The lack of traffic at six-thirty am is in his favor as he pulls into their parking spot, far before anyone else has arrived for school.

Band is there earlier than even the football team - ironic, considering this whole production was for _them_ \- milling around the band room, percussion hauling huge cases out of the locker room and guard retaping flags on the floor. Atsumu stands with his trumpet in his hands, watching Osamu carefully clean the pieces of his clarinet and put them together. He’s making a face around the reed he has stuck in his mouth, but Atsumu doesn’t make fun of him for it. Those kinds of jokes got old in middle school. 

Atsumu thinks back to elementary school, the first time that they touched their instruments. Osamu had broken the first reed he tried to play with because he was too stubborn. Atsumu had blown fruitlessly into his trumpet mouthpiece, not yet realizing that there was more involved in playing brass. 

They’d come far. Atsumu still has a video, somewhere, of Osamu playing his regional audition etudes from sophomore year. He’d thought it was so cool, how his brother had such control of a tiny, fragile instrument to make the sound bend however which way he wanted it to. Despite how much he loves it, Atsumu doesn’t watch the video often. It’s a reminder that he was the one who had made the regional honors band that year, and he’d always wondered if things would have been different if Osamu made it too.

After the rally, their paths don’t cross again until after school. It’s a half day, only lasting until eleven-thirty instead of two. They meet again in the band room, and walk to the car making small talk about their respective days. Neither has to ask the other what the plan is for their several free hours before the game. Osamu drives this time, with Atsumu in charge of the music, as always. He is berated for being so finicky with it when the drive across the highway to the shopping center is _literally_ not even ten minutes, but between the wait to get out of the crowded parking lot and the drive itself, Atsumu somehow manages to squeeze seven songs into that time. Seven bangers, and Osamu mouths along the words to all of them.

Atsumu holds open the door to Panda Express. Osamu orders his bowl without consulting him. He doesn’t need to. Atsumu gets their drinks, Osamu picks a seat. They know each other as well as they know themselves. 

Panda Express is unspoken tradition, or good luck, perhaps. It tastes like years of special occasions and half days at school and take-home after band competitions. It is a cheers to the football game they will have tonight. Atsumu eats artificially flavored orange chicken and fried rice doused in soy sauce packets and thinks that there is something special in simplicity made one's own. 

They walk slowly, minding the heat, still dressed in their show shirts from rally and denim jeans from school. Tonight their converse will be switched for marching shoes, and the concrete sidewalk under their feet for grass. 

The bell above the door to GameStop rings as they walk in. The store is small, a hole in the wall where every wall is lined with uncountable boxes for the current consoles. Atumu and Osamu crowd the Nintendo shelf, looking at the two versions of Pokemon and pointing out which one is theirs, reminiscing about playing Kirby together during the summer. While Osamu is distracted with the Playstation games, demanding to know when Atsumu is going to get into Kingdom Hearts with him, Atsumu slides a five dollar bill across the counter in exchange for a keyblade keychain. 

The Miya twins drive back to school to the sound of _You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid,_ headbanging with the music so hard the car shakes at a red light. This proves much funnier than it should be, and they are laughing even as they walk back into the performing arts building. 

(At the football game itself, during warmups on the track, every section has their mini rituals they take part in. Osamu sends the clarinets to surround Atsumu, where they circle around him, chanting, before all playing the loudest, shrillest note they can.)

* * *

_It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon._

_Keep Running._

Atsumu was the one who suggested it.

Their last show together had been called “Sing.” It was _Singin’ in the Rain_ by Gene Kelly, _SING_ by My Chemical Romance, _Sing_ by the Carpenters, and _Sing Sing Sing_ by Benny Goodman. 

It was designed as a show about living as your most authentic self, and singing out strong even when no one was around to hear. The pamphlet handed out at senior night, the one with Atsumu and Osamu’s face printed proudly among their other graduating peers, said as much on the back, next to a picture of the twins in matching drum major’s uniforms. 

_We sing for you,_ it read. _For everyone who feels like they’re never going to be loved for who they are. For everyone who feels like they don’t fit in. For everyone who thinks it’s not going to get better. For everyone who is scared to death of not succeeding. This one’s for you._

Atsumu would hold that senior pamphlet in his hand and read those words over and over, _Sing_ by the Carpenters playing through his head, and he would wonder if the future goals he had written next to his portrait would truly make him happier than Osamu in the end. 

Every year the band had a catchphrase to rally behind. Atsumu had listened to MCR’s _SING_ on loop when it finally hit him - the break before the last chorus, where they had all taken to shouting “Keep running!” on the field during practice, right where Gerard Way did. 

He opened the band's facebook page and wrote down his thoughts, ending with, _This show’s theme follows all those old sayings of “it’s not a sprint but a marathon,” and “slow and steady wins the race” - but all through it, you keep running. There’s no point looking behind you, no matter what, keep going._

When they made championships, the band parents had made signs to hold in the stands. They placed fourth and Atsumu was given the one that said, “It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Keep running!”

Now, it hung in his college dorm, near his desk. Every time he looked at it, he wondered if the show had meant that much to Osamu too.

* * *

In October, the band made their annual trip to one of the universities for Band Day. It’s an entire process to get there - any competition is a process, but Band Day involves waking up early, being at the school fully dressed in summer uniform and on the field by 11:30. They practice for a full two hours, until the sun is fully above their heads and beating down mercilessly, hot even for the middle of fall. It is tough, but it is worth it. Tonight, they will take the field and have one shot to perform their best. There is no reason to leave anything behind. 

Osamu will hardly remember that practice, or the two hour bus ride up north surrounded by their friends, or even the performance itself. In a few short months, the music will fade from his fingertips and the marching from the muscle memory of his feet. 

Instead, he will remember coming down from the performance, walking across the campus back to where their buses are parked among rows and rows of other high schools. It was dark and rainy and he slipped and fell on the slight incline of the asphalt, catching his full weight on one hand and one ankle in order to save his precious clarinet from a quick and untimely death. 

Aran and Suna will help him up, support his weight as he hobbles back to the bus. Atsumu will be with his friends in the front of the bus, and will not find out about Osamu’s sprained ankle and scraped knees until they stop for dinner on the way home. The buses are parked in an empty parking lot, a few fast food places and a grocery store lit up against the night, two hundred band kids dispersing to find sustenance after an entire day of physical and emotional exercise. Atsumu will be holding their place in line at the crowded Panda Express, just as he texted Osamu he would do. Osamu limped through the door, walking gingerly on his injured leg, protesting when Atsumu moved to hold him up and tease him about not knowing how to walk after seventeen years, which is really just his thinly veiled worry for his brother. 

They spend too much time eating and laughing, asking about each other’s performances, enjoying the company they didn’t get to have during the day. For all their arguing and fighting on and off the field, they truly did live in their own world sometimes. Their own world where they didn’t notice they needed to be back on the buses in five minutes.

“Well, shit,” says Atsumu, jumping up to throw their plastic takeout bowls, picked clean, into the garbage. 

“How the turntables,” laughs Osamu, his injured leg sticking out of the booth. Atsumu grabs his arm and hauls him out of his seat. “Looks like I’m the one making us late this time.” 

Atsumu scoffs at him, holding open the door. “Yeah, whatever. Here.”

He crouches, and Osamu is only confused for just a minute until he realizes what his brother is asking, and steps forward so Atsumu can haul him up on his back. 

Atsumu carries him across the entire parking lot back to the buses, with a minute to spare. 

* * *

Of course Osamu hurts, but he doesn’t tell Atsumu that until it’s too late. 

Atsumu seems to have his life together. They don’t call each other often, but when they do, he talks of his classes and his achievements and of band. Always of band. 

He’s still angry, Osamu can tell. Perhaps he tells him the best parts of band in an attempt to make him jealous and upset and regret leaving like he did. Osamu does not let him push his buttons. 

It comes to a head one night when they are texting - about what, he doesn’t remember - and he is distracted. Apparently more so than he thinks, because Atsumu asks him what is wrong. 

He sighs and breaks and writes out his thoughts.

_I feel like I’m having a breakdown over my classes. I don’t know if I even want to do this anymore because of them, and if this isn’t what I do with my life, then what is? I keep failing all the homework and missing the extra credit. It makes me feel stupid. I’m in a first year class right now and I’m failing._

_And you’re doing more and you’re doing so well. You win, okay? Fine._

Atsumu stares at his phone for a beat or three, then calls Osamu. It rings and rings and rings. 

_Pick up your fucking phone, Samu._

It is still for a minute, and then comes the reply:

_No. Leave me alone._

Osamu must turn his phone off, because the next one goes straight to voicemail. But Atsumu respects him, and leaves him alone. 

* * *

In senior year lit, they have a poetry unit. They split into groups, each taking a famous poem chosen by their teacher, and present it. 

Atsumu sits in his desk in the darkened room and does not pay much attention to the group presenting on the whiteboard. 

He is only half listening when the students begin reading their chosen poem from the slides.

_“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,_

_And sorry I could not travel both_

_And be one traveler, long I stood_

_And looked down one as far as I could_

_To where it bent in the undergrowth;”_

_I’ve decided I won’t be doing band_ , Osamu had said. Atsumu’s first thought had been disbelief, and then anger, because how dare he throw away the thing they had worked together for after so long. Something that had been so much a part of their identity and their togetherness.

_“Then took the other, as just as fair,_

_And having perhaps the better claim,_

_Because it was grassy and wanted wear;_

_Though as for that the passing there_

_Had worn them really about the same,”_

After anger came sadness. Atsumu, personally, could not imagine leaving behind something so important to him. Whereas he originally thought Osamu was stupid, maybe something was wrong. Was it Atsumu’s fault? Had he not been there with him, every step of the way?

_“And both that morning equally lay_

_In leaves no step had trodden black._

_Oh, I kept the first for another day!_

_Yet knowing how way leads on to way,_

_I doubted if I should ever come back.”_

Keep running, he thinks. There is no point in looking back on things he cannot change, and whatever had driven Osamu’s decision to pack away his clarinet for the last time, it was too late to change it now. 

_“I shall be telling this with a sigh_

_Somewhere ages and ages hence:_

_Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—_

_I took the one less traveled by,_

_And that has made all the difference.”_

Atsumu has a revelation, suddenly. 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood - the same wood. Two paths led to different places, different futures, but the road still connected them, perhaps to cross again in the future. 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood - but for fuck’s sake, he owned a cellphone. What was to stop him from calling and asking if Osamu’s path was still one of packed dirt and lined with mushrooms? Had it become gravel? Had it stopped abruptly, cut off by shrubbery and branches, tangled in a mess too terrible to unravel, forcing Osamu to tread back the way he came?

Atsumu would drop everything to help Osamu clear his path and set him on his way again, he knew. His brother would do the same. 

The question was, did his brother still need him?

On the way to his seventh period class, Atsumu types and walks across campus, scrawling out a message in a text to his brother. 

Somewhere else, in another class, Miya Osamu smirks at his phone. 

_Who says the one who sticks with band will be the more successful one by default, huh? I didn’t decide to leave outta some kind of compromise, or ‘cause I didn’t think I could do it. If you’re so damn confident, so damn Sure you’ll be the happier one, then come back when we’re eighty-year-old geezers! Wait until then to laugh in my face._

Atsumu clicks his phone off and smiles. If there were two paths to take, it would only make sense to split up. 

* * *

In Atsumu’s college band, “separate ways with fanfare” meant to play _Dream On_ directly into _Separate Ways._ It started as a joke long before he had joined the band, a reference to the fanfares written for their fight songs, played by the trumpets on special occasions. _Dream On_ was in and of itself its own song, not ‘improvised’ nor ‘short’ nor ‘a flourish just for brass’. 

But it was a lead-up all the same, one that tantalized the audience into looking forward to the wild energy of playing _Separate Ways_ many clicks faster than Journey had. 

The Miya twins were not ones to do things in the traditional sense, and perhaps to them, fanfare meant an entire story on its own.

(Like the one that they had already lived, before they went their separate ways.)

After a day of not speaking after Osamu’s alarming texts - ones that left Atsumu sitting on his porch, staring at his phone, feeling powerless and small and miles away from his brother, unable to help - Osamu calls him. 

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“We’re callin’ and watching the newest episode of our show on Friday, right?” Osamu asks. It’s an olive branch, an attempt to bridge the gap that had been growing between them when they didn’t even notice. 

“Yeah. I get done with class at six.”

“Me too.”

There is a beat of silence. Atsumu can hear Osamu clicking away on his keyboard, probably in between classes. 

“”Samu, are ya okay?”

“‘Course.”

“No, I mean-”

“I didn’t want to cry in front of ya, okay? And if ya called I would’ve.”

Atsumu is nearly blown away by his honesty. “Ya didn’t have to talk, I just- I wanted to make sure ya were okay. And tell ya that it’s all fine. Did ya really think that I didn’t feel the same way about my classes? Feeling stupid in university?”

“Since ya always talked about how everything was going good, I assumed-”

“And yer stupid.”

“I guess we both are.” 

The call pauses as Osamu switches it to facetime, so they can see each other’s faces. “This sucks.”

Atsumu barks out a laugh. “Life, or my face? It’s yer face, don’t forget.”

“Both. But mostly life.”

“Yeah. Shit sucks. It’s hard.”

They both sit in the quiet of their dining room tables, in separate places, worlds apart, and talk about the ups and the downs, the struggles and the failures, that they are so bad at letting each other see. And for two people who already were inseparable, it was incredible how such a conversation could bring them further together, despite the distance of being apart. 

They decide, without saying it out loud, that it is not a competition anymore. Yes, if you asked them, they would say it was - they were both hell-bent on living the better, more successful life. But it was also difficult to judge success when their paths were now so wildly different. Even if the fanfare of their lives had been them, together, they were always destined for separate ways. 

Perhaps the real measure of success is having your other half, your greatest friend, and the only other person who will understand you so completely, just one phone call away. 

* * *

_Even if we're far away from each other, our thoughts are connected._

_Even if a mischievous fate tries to befall us, we won't break,_

_If the tomorrow that I wish for is ahead of me,_

_Everyone should notice this, in their minds,_

_One day I want to show you when._

_\- L’Arc en Ciel, “Link”_

**Author's Note:**

> [i'm on twitter](twitter.com/petalbridges)!  
> and [here](https://youtu.be/L0aZDe77XgA?t=220) (@3:40) is a video of the band playing separate ways with fanfare :)  
> thank you for reading!


End file.
